Mansion Residents

Mansion houses 10 studios and offices for permanent
residents, also known as ‘Mansioners’. Offering flexible, low-rent studios in a
collectively shared, creative environment in Beirut is an essential part of
Mansion’s essence, and we are proud to share this space with:

GHAITH&JAD

Ghaith
Abi Ghanem & Jad Melki received their Bachelor of Architecture degree from
the American University of Beirut in 2012, and were granted the Areen Award for
Excellence in Architecture for both their final year projects. They have
previously interned at Raëd Abillama Architects in Lebanon and at Herzog and de
Meuron in Switzerland, which gave them insight into the professional world of
architecture.

Their
work gives particular importance to the design process and allows the
experimentation to freely sculpt their designs. They focus on being true to
material and responsive to context, and that is core to any of their projects.

Ghaith
& Jad continue their design explorations through their studio at “Mansion”
a reclaimed 19th century residence that houses multidisciplinary
designers under one roof.

They
were selected by Starch Foundation to redesign the STARCH 2014-2015 boutique
and launch their own line of products.

FANNY SELLER

The
work of Fanny Seller addresses the temporality of the trace, the archaeological
memory of the body, the identity of childhood, and the ‘progressive’ migration
of the image. Through her works she questions the contingency of time and space,
by resuming contact with collective memory. Negotiating
the immutability of images, she re-draws them, rearrange them, providing them
with a new material existence in the form of reverse glass painting and
painting on canvas. The subjects of the images become decontextualised through
this process, which simultaneously rids them of their initial narrative
environment, while revealing a fragment of reality.

Fanny
Seller earned a Masters in Contemporary Art History from Sorbonne University
and a Master of Advanced Studies in Cultural Management from Paris before
arriving in Beirut in 1997, she taught Art History for Architecture
students at ALBA (Académie Libanaise des Beaux Arts). She took part in the
first icon restoration workshop in Lebanon.

Following this, she then pursued a five-year training course in the
conservation and restoration of paintings at La Cambre University (ENSAV) in
Brussels. Having returned to Beirut yet again, she now teaches yoga to children
and leads creative workshops for young people entitled "Recycl'Art"
at the French Institute media library in Beirut.

We are zumra,
a graphic design studio based in Beirut, Lebanon, founded in January 2013 by
Ayman Hassan and Ziad Bou Assi.

Our process
of work, from beginning to end, is based on expressing our thoughts, ideas, and
concepts formalistically. This culminates into a visual which is seen, experienced,
and hence understood, rather than explained.

Deghri Messengers

Deghri
Messengers offers fast, reliable delivery across Beirut by bicycle. Businesses
and organisations all over the city has realised the excellent value in having
their urgent delivery needs handled by the team.

Deghri
Messengers is a project implemented by CyclingCircle s.a.r.l. Together they work
to promote cycling in Beirut, led by the belief of its health benefits and
potential to create a cleaner, safer urban environment.

Ayssar Arida & Sabine de Maussion

Ayssar AridaandSabine de Maussionrecently founded urbacraft ,The City Crafting System, an innovative educational urban
design construction toy, and have been hosted by Mansion since July 2014.

Ayssar Arida is
an urbatect, writer, designer and entrepreneur.

His first book, Quantum City (2002) looked at the dynamics of chaotic cities like Beirut through the lens of new scientific paradigms. He
lectures internationally and has held teaching positions at the
American University of Beirut and Lebanese American University.Ayssar ran trans-disciplinary agency Q-DAR development | architecture | research
for 13 years moving between Beirut, London and Paris,and consulted for
major international cultural and educational institutions including over
5 years with Parsons The New School For Design of New York. Joining the nascent clustering of creative industries in the region, he launched URBATECTURE Urban Design Thinking in
Beirut in 2012, working in architecture, urban design, culture and
education consultancy, and toy and videogame design and development.

Ayssar’s
work received the Cityscape Dubai/Architectural Review Award 2005 and
MIPIM 2006 Best of Show, and Netherlands Games Award 2013 for the game
RETROREDUX CORE80.

Sabine de Maussionis a cultural consultant, researcher and
curator. She holds a Master in Postcolonial Studies (La Sorbonne), and a Master
in Economics of Culture (Dauphine), is trained in the History of Art and Arabic
Language and Civilization (Licence, Inalco, Paris), and is currently a PhD candidate in Visual Cultures at
Goldsmiths College (London).

Sabine is an expert researcher on publics of
culture and on educational programmes. She lectures in the Masters of
Curating and Art Criticism at Universite Saint Joseph in Beirut (USJ). She
occupied senior positions in different cultural,
artistic, and governmental institutions in France, including as director
of the Arts
Department at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International
Relations
Officer at Le CENTQUATRE/Paris, Education and Learning Programmes
Officer at
the Centre Pompidou/Paris, and Curator at La Villette/Paris. She has
worked as a Cultural Officer at the French Institute of Damascus (3
years) and Cairo (2 years).

Regar is a kitchen of
ideas and creative impulses in the service of bicycles and cyclists.

The crew is a get
together of enthusiasts from different disciplines brought together by their
passion for eco-friendly two wheeled structures. Regar is 10m2 of the Mansion
Zqaq El Blatt where we lovingly restore old unloved bikes to their former
glory. It is a cooking pot of creative thinking of urban cycling in the Beiruti
context.

If you have a bike
that you haven't ridden for years, that's been rusting away in the cellar with
no one to ride it, think about donating it to Regar - it will be lovingly restored
and helped to find its new owner.

If you've been riding
your bike every day for ages but never showed it any tender loving care, bring
it to Regar and learn how to give it what it needs.